Cocoa-Dusted Ganaches

Mid-afternoon, New Year's Day. Arriving home to an empty flat, having slept at 4am that morning, motivation levels were not high. 'Proper' cooking was definitely out of the question.

Faced with dwindling sunlight, a block of 73% dark chocolate, and a tub of double cream, there was only one thing to do. I'd happened across a recipe for dark chocolate ganache last month, and now seemed as good a time as any.

Making the ganaches was dead simple: dissolve sugar in boiling cream, pour over cut-up pieces of dark chocolate, mix together into a paste, leave in the fridge for around 2 hours. Dust hands in cocoa-powder and roll into little spheres.

The whole process took less than 30 minutes (excluding the fridge time) and resulted in 20-or-so very classy looking cocoa-dusted ganaches. I piled them into an old Ferrero Rocher box lined with baking paper.

Ganache, ambassador?

As a concession to the blog's Japanese theme, I cut up some Toppo (chocolate-filled pretzel sticks) for the photos. Made by Lotte, the same brand who produce those chocolate koalas, these sticks are dangerously more-ish. Pringles, you ain't seen nothing yet.

Here's the ganache recipe from The Times website. Watch the video too for helpful hints, such as rolling the chocolates using your fingers, not palms, as your palms would be too warm. A few extra tips: make a small batch to start  -- I used a 100g bar and scaled the recipe accordingly -- and cut up the chocolate pieces as small as possible, so they melt easier when the cream is added.

Simple, tasty, with "I can't believe you made these!"-factor. That's next year's Christmas presents all sorted, then.

Comments

[Jeff]

Your photos are really quite nice to look at!

[JenJen]

Thanks Jeff!

[Ferrero Rocher philippines]

your photos looks so delicious,Interesting views.
love chocolate so much.

vee

[Ferrero Rocher philippines]

I was looking your blog a month nowgood that I found again I really wanted to try this cocoa-dusted ganaches,I love it.

vee